Why AI Would Be Nothing Without Big Data

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of
the most transformative forces of our times. While there may be debate
whether AI will transform our world in good or evil ways, something we
can all agree on is that AI would be nothing without big data.

Even though AI technologies have
existed for several decades, it’s the explosion of data—the raw material
of AI—that has allowed it to advance at incredible speeds. It’s the
billions of searches done every day on Google that provide a sizable
real-time data set for Google to learn from our typos and search
preferences. Siri and Cortana would have only a rudimentary
understanding of our requests without the billions of hours of spoken
word now digitally available that helped them learn our language.
Similarly, Connie, the first concierge robot from Hilton Hotels
understands natural language and responds to guests’ questions about the
hotel, local attractions, restaurants and more. The robot became
intelligent due to the extensive data it was given to learn how to
process future input.

AI continues to mature due to the explosion of data

Each year, the amount of data we produce doubles and it is predicted that within the next decade there will be 150 billion networked sensors
(more than 20 times the people on Earth). This data is instrumental in
helping AI devices learn how humans think and feel, and accelerates
their learning curve and also allows for the automation of data
analysis. The more information there is to process, the more data the
system is given, the more it learns and ultimately the more accurate it
becomes. Artificial Intelligence is now capable of learning without
human support. In just one example, Google’s DeepMind algorithm recently
taught itself how to win 49 Atari games.In the past, AI’s growth was stunted
due to limited data sets, representative samples of data rather than
real-time, real-life data and the inability to analyze massive amounts
of data in seconds. Today, there’s real-time, always-available access to
the data and tools that enable rapid analysis. This has propelled AI
and machine learning and allowed the transition to a data-first
approach. Our technology is now agile enough to access these colossal
datasets to rapidly evolve AI and machine-learning applications.

Businesses in all industries are
joining AI pioneers such as Google and Amazon to implement AI solutions
for their organizations. MetLife, one of the largest global providers of
insurance, employee benefit and annuities programs, has also powered AI initiatives with big data.
Speech recognition has improved the tracking of incidents and outcomes,
the company has more efficient claims processing because claims models
have been enriched with unstructured data they now analyze such as
doctor’s reports and they are working toward automated underwriting.

Will a computer ever be able to think
like a human brain? Some say never, while others say we’re already
there. Nevertheless, we’re at the point where the ability for machines
to see, understand and interact with the world is growing at a
tremendous rate and is only increasing with the volume of data that
helps them learn and understand even faster. Big data is the fuel that
powers AI. Via Forbes contributed by Bernard Marr